“That I deserve suspicion?” Mr. Bennet laughed. “Anhonest man—”
“I meant that I should return to my wife. Though it is up to her to forgive you, not me.”
Bennet blinked several times. Then he laughed. “Is this yet another act in our comedy of errors? Bingley traveled to Longbourn, only to be told Jane was in London. You advised Bingley against marrying Jane, only to be required to make the effort to explain your own mistake. And now I came here in hopes of convincing you to travel back to Pemberley, when you had made that decision already?”
“It seems that none of us achieve our goals in the way we mean to,” Darcy said. “The whole does sound quite ridiculous when put that way — though my behavior is the most ridiculous.”
“I say mine, and I hope Bingley says that it was his own.”
“He seemed to merely think it an amusing joke, and of no cosmic significance. Though Bingley chiefly blames his sisters who did not inform him that Jane had called on him.” Darcy used the Christian name of his sister-in-law as a way of claiming his own right to Elizabeth.
Mr. Bennet grinned. “I like him. Hard not to.”
“By which you mean that I am easier to dislike?” Darcy replied dryly.
“Oh, enormously! You are a firmer sort of fellow. Now, since I am already here — already took the bull by the horns, or maybe the horns by the bull — did you ever see a bullfight on your grand tour?”
“I did not take one due to my father's final illness.”
Mr. Bennet nodded. “A pity.” He straightened out his coat cuffs, pressed his lips together, and then polished off the end of his brandy. “Speaking two months too late, might I inquire about your intentions with regards to my daughter.”
Darcy laughed. He could not help it. The question waswholly not what he had expected.
In reply Bennet laughed and pushed his glass towards him, and Darcy refilled it and then filled one of his own.
That laughter had eased the tension between the two gentlemen. They cheerfully clinked glasses together.
Darcy drank half of his off and grandly said, “I admire and love your daughter, and I hope to convince her that I have become a man worthy of her admiration. That is all.”
“That is all? A good start. And might I inquire further, what kept you in town so long? Your health perhaps?”
“I have been smelling the waters.”
“I hate this city,” Bennet replied. “But it is better in winter than in summer. And there are so many lovely bookstores. I have a commission from Elizabeth to buy some recent books that she says are not present in your stockpile of knowledge.”
Darcy said, “The truth is that I thought she could not love me after she made me understand the ways that I had wronged her. And I could not bear to live with her when I had no hope.”
“But now you have hope?”
“She sent me a letter in which she said that she hoped to see me again soon.” Darcy shrugged. “That is enough for me at this time.”
“You love her.”
“I always have, but I only have recently come to fully understand the depth of my feelings.”
“Be a brave man and tell her how you truly feel. What do you have to lose? — if you can truly accept my dear, dear daughter as the brave, bright, and clever, shining woman who she is — complete with a family who are not all so admirable as she is.” Mr. Bennet laughed deprecatingly, “I can speak well for one of her sisters, but her other sisters, a sillier set of girls do not exist in England, and as for her parents, especially her father, the less said the better — I am not requesting a compliment. I havelearned to think rather poorer of myself in the last weeks than is my wont, and I mean to cultivate that humility. In any case. In any case — if you accept Elizabeth the way she truly is, I think you will deserve her, and I believe she will see that you have changed. It is clear in how she writes about you that she thinks very differently of you than she did before your argument.”
“What has she said?” Darcy asked instantly.
“No, no.” Mr. Bennet wagged a finger. “No, no. Ask her yourself how she thinks of you.”
“It would not be gentlemanly,” Darcy agreed, though he did desperately wish to know exactly what Mr. Bennet knew of Elizabeth’s feelings for him, “to even hint at the contents of a lady’s correspondence.”
“And now you have punctured me, and with more than merely a flesh wound.” Mr. Bennet shrugged. “You’ve had enough advice from an old, fond man. When do you mean to leave?”
“Tomorrow, I think I shall call on you all at the Gardiners, at the time you suggested, and then directly leave the city from Gracechurch Street.”
“Ah, I must then buy those books today, and I can save the cost of having them shipped.”
